In known indirect, or offset, printing systems having a drum, the print process includes an imaging phase and a transfer phase. In ink printing systems, the imaging phase is the portion of the print process in which the ink is ejected from the nozzles in one or more printheads in an image pattern onto an image receiving member surface. The image receiving member typically has a very thin layer of release agent on its surface to facilitate transfer of the image from the image receiving member. The transfer phase is the portion of the print process in which the ink image is transferred from the image receiving member onto a recording medium. The image transfer typically occurs by bringing a transfer roller into contact with the image receiving member to form a nip. A recording medium arrives at the nip as the image receiving member rotates the ink image through the nip. The pressure in the nip helps transfer the image formed of malleable inks from the image receiving member to the recording medium.
In some indirect printers, a stripper blade is used to intervene between the leading edge of a media leaving the transfer nip and the image receiving member to facilitate separation of the media from the image receiving member after the image is transferred to the media. The stripper is pressed against the image receiving member by an actuator, such as a solenoid, to facilitate separation of the leading edge of the sheet from the image receiving member. After the sheet has passed through the nip, the actuator moves the stripper blade out of contact with the image receiving member to prevent excessive wear of the blade and image receiving member. Manual maintenance operations are periodically performed to the image receiving member and stripper blade. A second actuator is required to unlock the stripper to enable manual movement of the stripper from the image receiving member to allow sufficient clearance for the components that perform the manual maintenance operations. Using multiple actuators to operate the stripper system results in undesirable noise and excess moving parts. Similar components in a printer, such as media diverters, also require mechanisms for pivoting arms and unlocking of the components to facilitate maintenance, such as clearing paper jams. Consequently, improved mechanisms for operating printer components would be beneficial.